by Ondjaki
At times he took off his clothes. Underneath, Sea Foam wore outfits so old and dirty it was impossible to tell what fabrics they were made from. At other times he went in with his clothes hanging on his body, and not just a few of them; when he came out of the water, they must have weighed a ton.
He wobbled, laughed as he started running and laughed even more if we were there. He knew that we watched his every move attentively and that later we’d go tell the others. He wobbled, ran as though he were one of those people who know how to dive into swimming pools, like athletes at the Olympic games who dive in fast without making the water stir, except that Foam would suddenly seize up and enter the water almost in slow motion. It was really funny, he seemed to be saying excuse me to the fish and the seashells; he sat down right on the shore and let his body sink into the waves where there wasn’t enough water for even a baby to go under.
“I don’t have a bath at home, but they can’t say I never took a foam bath.”
That was how he got his name, Sea Foam, there on the shoreline of Bishop’s Beach, where there was a huge blotch of white foam deposited by the breaking waves to ensure that the water merely lapped against the sand. Only if you walked far out did you lose your footing. There the foam disappeared, but closer in, where we also liked to pick up pretty seashells, it was just clean white foam, completely white as you looked to the right and the left, with Sea Foam’s body making a dark stain in the whiteness.
“Oye, niños, es el cabello del mar... The hair of the sea, do you understand? I mean, hahaha...” He went under for a second, dipped all of his hair in the foam awash with sand and shattered seashells, came up almost breathless and then puffed like a little whale. “I mean… I’m just a louse in the white hair of the sea.”
3.14 looked at me with an expression of pity. Lots of people on Bishop’s Beach pitied Sea Foam. I never really understood this: Why pity him? A person who went swimming every day and laughed and said that there was the white hair of the sea; a person who spoke Cuban and knew the stars in the sky and the mathematical value of Pi and—who knew for sure?—a person who kept an alligator in a doghouse; maybe even a person who was happy, and only he could know this. 3.14 put his finger to his head to signal that Foam was cuckoo, demented, crazy, but to tell the truth I don’t know if Foam was crazy like those real crazies people talk about.
“Maybe he’s just a different kind of person,” as Granma Catarina said. “You kids have to show respect.”
I loved Sea Foam’s swims in the white foam.
“Let’s split, this is taking too long. We’ve got other business to settle.”
3.14 had those phrases of his: “other business to settle.” I figure he liked to imitate how the elders talked, and he also learned by heart lines from soap operas, even soap operas he had never seen: words spoken by Senhor Nacib in some episode of Gabriela or something, or some comrade politician someplace in the arsehole of the world in the Brazilian backlands, I think it was called Sucupira and he was something like Odorico Paranguaçu.
“It’s not ‘Paranguaçu,’” he corrected me, “it’s ‘Paraguaçu,’ and he’s one hilarious comrade.”
“But you haven’t even seen those soap operas, 3.14. Excuse me, but you can’t know.”
“You bet I know because people tell me about them. I know tons of lines from tons of soap operas my aunts saw when we weren’t even born.”
“But your aunts didn’t even have television. They were off in the bush with the guerrillas, shooing the mosquitoes off their legs.” I was giving him a ribbing.
“You’re full of it...In the bush they have medicines and plants that keep away the mosquitoes.”
“Just listen”—he didn’t like me to talk about this—“in the bush did they have paper to wipe their tails?”
“And in your Granma’s house, when you don’t have toilet paper, how do you clean up?”
“We’ve got newspaper pages...You just crumple them up a bit and they feel smooth.”
“Then in the bush they had leaves...You think being a guerrilla was a joke?” He got nervous when we took the piss out of the guerrillas.
“Cool it, I’m not talkin’ about the guerrillas. I’m just sayin’ that sometimes you must make up a few lines from those soap operas you haven’t even seen...”
“I’m not in the habit of making things up. It’s just that sometimes it’s necessary to do a bit of adapting.”
“What do you mean by ‘adapting’?”
“Like you mess around with things a bit...The story gets better and the person who’s listening enjoys it more.”
“I guess my grandmothers do a lot of adapting.”
“I guess so. Let’s get going.”
We came across Charlita with a piece of paper in her hand and a worried look on her face. She was sweating in the sun and her super ugly glasses were sliding off her nose.
“Hey, how come you don’t use one of those little straps to keep your glasses in place?”
“Straps are for Sea Foam’s alligator. If you like him so much, why don’t you use a strap?”
“Jeeze, you don’t have to talk like that.”
“How’s it going? Do we have results, Comrade?” There was 3.14 with that elder-talk.
“The results are tons of houses.”
“What are you guys talkin’ about?”
“Charlita’s discovered the mark they invented.”
“What mark?”
“For the houses that are going to be dexploded.”
“Isn’t it ‘exploded’?”
“I prefer ‘dexploded.’ Isn’t Sea Foam speaking Cuban all the time? Then I can speak Angolan here on Bishop’s Beach. Comrade Charlita, what’s the latest on the situation?”
“Lots of houses are marked. They mark them at the back, on the wall that faces the alley. They use a Soviet letter.”
“And the houses that don’t have a side facing the alley?”
“They mark the sidewalk. A little ways away.”
“Is your place marked, Charlita?”
“Yeah.”
“And my grandmother’s house?”
“That too. They even marked the gas station, the bakery and the Kinanga Cinema. Bishop’s Beach is gonna practically disappear.”
I felt a teary sadness rising into my eyes and had to pretend it was the sun. 3.14 also looked strange as he surveyed many of those houses of our neighbourhood of dust and children’s games. A huge tractor passed by very close to us. It was heavy and made a lot of noise but nobody got out of the way. The driver swore under his breath, the main gate of the Mausoleum opened and the tractor went inside. Then there was an odd silence.
“Good morning, Pioneers.” It was the Comrade Gas Jockey. “You have to leave now. I’m going to hose down the station.”
Half-smiling, we walked slowly in the direction of the house of Charlita’s father, Senhor Tuarles. The Comrade Gas Jockey did that almost every morning. He hefted his broom, put on rubber boots, unrolled a hose, turned on the faucet and there was no water.
“How strange, there’s no water in the faucet.” And he would put everything away again, very slowly.
What was strange were elders who did things over again every day in spite of knowing that nothing changes. How many years had it been since there had been water at that gas station?
We sat down on the sidewalk, between Granma Agnette’s house and that of Senhor Tuarles. A mark in pale ink was there, right on the edge of the potholed sidewalk.
“That’s the mark.”
“But you don’t even speak Soviet. How do you know that says they’re going to dexplode?”
“Cause yesterday morning in the middle of the night I saw a Soviet make that mark.”
“In the middle of the night? You were awake?”
“Not me. It was my Granma Maria.”
“Granma Maria was awake in the middle of the night? Then how is it that she gets up early in the morning to make her kitaba?”
“Granma Maria doesn’t need to wake up early because she doesn’t sleep.”
3.14 gave a doubtful look, but I believed Charlita. Every morning Granma Nhé says that she hasn’t slept even though I hear her snoring at night when I go to pee in the dark. But, for example, Granma Catarina doesn’t sleep at all. Either she sits in the rocking chair in her room, or she goes to the kitchen, or I hear the sound she makes when she goes up and down the stairs, but she doesn’t sleep. Or maybe she sleeps in the morning, but it’s unusual to find Granma Catarina moving around the house before noon. And if she moves around, she doesn’t speak.
“All that’s left for us to find out is when they’re going to do this.”
“I figure they won’t give us any warning.” Charlita spoke in a sad voice. “Because if they warn us, it’s going to cause an uproar. The day they dexplode is the day they’ll arrive with news of new houses, in a neighbourhood nobody’s ever seen.”
“If that neighbourhood doesn’t have the sea, what’s the Old Fisherman going to do?”
“And what about Sea Foam? Where’s he going to swim?”
“You guys aren’t seein’ the whole problem we got with this.” 3.14’s voice had become serious. “The problem is that there aren’t even any houses in that neighbourhood.”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it possible that neighbourhood exists?”
“It must exist, 3.14. Comrade Gudafterov says...”
“Comrade Gudafterov has a house in the far-away. This here is just a borrowed place for him. He can tell us whatever he wants.”
“But they’re always talkin’ about that new neighbourhood. It must exist.”
“And peace exists?”
“Huh?”
“Well, they’re always talkin’ about peace, but as far as I know it still doesn’t exist. Ask your Granma Catarina, who talks with the dead...”
“I don’t like conversations about the dead early in the morning,” Charlita begged.
“That’s why I’m saying this.” 3.14 looked in the direction of the Mausoleum construction site. He closed his hands into improvised binoculars with little holes to see in the distance. “First we have to remove the marks... But the most important thing...”
“Go ahead.”
“Only if nobody squeals.”
“Go ahead then.”
“We have to dexplode the dynamite.”
We heard the sound of the Comrade Doctor Rafael KnockKnock’s white Lada turning into the square. It stopped right in front of us.
“Buenas, Comrades!”
“Buenas,” we answered in unison.
“Is your abuela here?”
“Sí.”
“Come with me.”
I winked at the others to indicate that we would continue our plan later and they made a signal that they had understood.
“You must have courage, compañero.”
“Why?”
“Your abuela is not well.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“A serious problema. We are going to talk with her.”
“More serious problems! Jeeze!”
When we reached the veranda, the living-room door was slightly ajar, but Comrade Rafael didn’t knock firmly. He closed the door in order to be able to knock gently.
“KnockKnock! It’s Rafael.” He laughed alone because I no longer felt like laughing.
Madalena opened the door and smiled with that idiotic expression she put on when she looked at older men.
“¡Buenas! ¿La abuela?”
“She’s right here.”
“Let’s go, then. Come with me.” He took my hand, which was another thing I didn’t like.
“Good day, Doctor. Forgive me for not getting up.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Madalena, offer the doctor a drink.”
“That would—”
“A glass of water, good and cold,” Granma Nhé interrupted.
“That would be very nice.”
“But, as there’s no electricity, we only have water without ice. Anyway, ice water is bad for the throat.”
“I understand.” With a gentle laugh, Comrade Rafael began to take instruments out of his bag. “We are going to measure your tensión.”
“As you wish. Do you want the child to leave?”
“No, no. He is a brave compañero, no?”
“Sí.”
“All right. A little silencio, por favor.”
“Unplug the radio, Madalena.”
“I can’t, Granma.”
“Turn off the radio, you hear me?”
Rafael KnockKnock strained to hear the heartbeat as everybody kept talking.
“But, Granma, the ‘off’ button broke.”
“Then take out the batteries, you dimwit. Is your head just for hanging braids?”
The radio went off, but the parrots in the yard started to shout. “Citizens of Sucupira,” one of them screeched in the voice of old Odorico. “The bloodythirsty bandit Roque Santeiro, son of a snoring, snorting mare,” the other shouted in the voice of Sinhozinho Malta. Comrade Rafael almost had to close his eyes to try to hear. The rooster crowed, too, and Senhor Tuarles began to press down on the accelerator of the broken-down car in his yard. The car didn’t work any more, but Senhor Tuarles liked to rev it up.
“How’s it look, Doctor?”
“Everything está bien with la tensión, don’t worry, Abuela. I’ve come to talk to you about something else—something more serious.”
“What’s that?”
“He said he came to talk about something else, Granma.”
“Gracias, muchacho.Tell your abuela that I spoke with Victoria, her daughter...”
“Aunty Tó fought her?”
“No, I spoke to your aunt, who asked me—” Here Comrade Rafael KnockKnock did what the Cubans, and also the Soviets, always did: he started to speak more slowly but also more loudly to see whether I understood.
“Son, tell the doctor that in our house we don’t like people to speak so loudly.”
“I am sorry, Señora Agnette. I spoke with your daughter Victoria, who asked me to come and explain to you the seriousness of your condición.”
“My what?”
“Aunty Tó told him to come here to give you news, Granma, because I guess Aunty Tó doesn’t have the courage to come here and tell you the news herself.”
“Don’t start inventing things,” Granma Nhé said.
“I didn’t invent anything, Granma. Let him tell you what’s going on.”
“Bueno...It turns out la situación is more complicada than I had thought.”
“He’s saying the situation’s real complicated, Granma.”
“You have a wound that is... How do you say, gangrenaded.”
“Granma, he says your wound is like a grenade.”
“No, no, muchacho, ‘gangrenaded’ is a technical term.”
“But that grenade is just a technical term. He means it won’t dexplode.”
“No, look, muchacho, seriously, you have to tell her: the wound is very bad and it is very dangerous.”
“The wound has a lot of danger and is really bad.”
“Oh my God.” Granma Nhé looked worried, the poor thing.
“It’s too late, we can do nada and it is very dangerous for it to stay like this. She will have to go to the hospital mañana and have an operation.”
“Operation?” Granma asked.
“Yes, Granma. He says the wound’s dangerous and they have to operate tomorrow.”
“I’m not leaving this house until I speak to my daughter.”
&nb
sp; “Sí. I comprendo but I have already spoken to your daughter. She is in the military hospital preparing everything.”
“He said he’s already spoken with Aunty Tó, that she’s in the military hospital to prepare things, Granma.”
“Very good.” Granma Nhé took a deep breath. “Drink your glass of water slowly.”
“¿Cómo?”
“Drink your water slowly. Slowly. I’ve already had one person making my life miserable over a glass of water.”
Comrade Rafael KnockKnock looked at me in search of an explanation that I was unable to provide.
“Drink the water, Comrade. It’s from the filter and it contains lye. You can drink it without worry.”
“I understand.”
“Now you can go, Doctor.” Granma spoke slowly. “I need to be alone.”
“Bueno, Abuela, as you wish. We will see each other mañana. Take care.”
“Thank you.”
Madalena picked up the glass of water and I went to accompany Comrade Rafael to his car.
“Look, tell your Aunt Victoria that she must prepare her better. Psychologically, I mean.”
“What do you mean? What do I say?”
“She must speak with her. You see, mañana we have to remove her toe. If we don’t do it, there’s a danger that she’ll lose her foot and her whole leg. You have to be strong, muchacho. Adiós.”
“Adiós.”
Outside, Charlita and 3.14 were looking at me with fearful expressions.
“Did you understand what he said?”
“I guess so.”
“And you aren’t going to tell your granma?”
“I guess she already understood. We’ll talk later.”
When I entered the house Granma Nhé was on the telephone with tears in her eyes, talking to Aunty Tó, who was also a doctor, and who must have been explaining everything to her. I heard the sound of the windows being closed and I thought that it was about time for Granma Catarina to appear.
Granma hung up the phone, wiped her tears and pulled me close to her.
